Executive Assessment and Succession Planning

Better leaders at the heart of business

Your leaders are pivotal to achieving your business goals. Effective leaders drive revenue and profit, shape vision, culture, and engagement, unlock innovation, and influence your company’s external reputation. Conversely, the financial, organizational, and human costs of poor leadership are all too familiar. We partner with you and your Board on CEO and C-Suite succession and to assess executives you are considering hiring so that you have the best leaders at the heart of your business.

Executive assessment and succession planning with MindsOpen

With decades of experience assessing thousands of leaders, we know what good leadership looks like. Our tried and tested approach to assessment goes beyond the superficial so we can present you with a reliable, accurate, clear picture of each executive. We benchmark and calibrate the leaders we assess against the requirements for the role. Through our rigorous and insightful process, we tell you the strengths and risks of each leader and how they are likely to behave.  

Our succession planning helps you identify the key priorities your next CEO or C-Suite executive needs to deliver, the leadership capabilities required for success, and the accompanying knowledge and experience. We partner with you to deliver a robust and objective process and to give the individuals involved the best opportunity to ready themselves for the role.

Our executive assessment and succession planning offerings

Assessment for selection

Using our assessment methodology, we profile leaders to give you a rich, and clear picture of the leaders you’re considering hiring. We help you make a more informed decision.

Assessment for development

Our assessment process gives your executives essential insights about their leadership and a targeted plan for their development. At the end of the process, you’ll know how best to  support their growth.

CEO and C-Suite Succession

Our suite of offerings (defining the success profile, executive  assessments, development planning and coaching) contribute to you getting the right executives in place to lead the organization.

Leadership Framework

While there are some common attributes that make leaders effective, the context, climate, and culture also matter. We work with you and the Board to define the success criteria for critical roles.

Let’s talk more about leadership development

What does the MindsOpen assessment process entail?

We start the process by engaging you to get a detailed understanding of role requirements and the context. The assessment itself comprises a deep exploration of the leader’s professional and personal experiences, supported by psychometric data. Our approach helps us get to reliable insights about the individual and to give you recommendations for hiring decisions or development pathways.

What’s it like to be assessed by MindsOpen?

The goal of our assessments is to get to the fundamentals of a leader including their values, motivations, patterns of behavior, strengths, and gaps. We are rigorous in doing so while bringing a dignified, respectful, adult-adult style of engaging leaders. Individuals typically report feeling that they have been tested but also seen and heard. Often, leaders come away from the assessment with new insights about themselves.

What are the benefits our succession planning work?

Some of the most common errors organizations make in succession planning are:

  • Starting the process too late
  • Not planning for succession
  • Making decisions based on current performance
  • Being influenced by subjective judgements, personal agendas, and politics
  • A lack of transparency
  • Partnering with MindsOpen minimizes these risks and contributes to more objective, fairer decision-making.
What do clients say about our executive assessment and succession work?

Their direct style is appreciated. They see into your soul. Other providers are too fluffy compared to MindsOpen. They deliver feedback in a concise and calm way. They see through all the barriers to get to the essence of a person or team. They make a meaningful difference to individuals and teams that go through the rigor of the customized approach. The best I have seen at cutting through the BS and identifying the core of the issue(s). CEO, Food and Beverage Industry

services

Executive
Coaching

Our insight-driven executive coaching helps leaders evolve at a pace that outstrips the demands of their role and make lasting breakthroughs.

Team
Development

Leadership teams we work with are more effective by better understanding each other, leveraging their strengths, and knowing their collective purpose.

Leadership
Development

With our learner-centric approach, leaders better understand their behavior and impact. They grow by practicing new ways of responding to real-world scenarios. 

Executive Assessment and Succession Planning

Having assessed thousands of leaders, we give you with a reliable and accurate profile of new hires and current executives. Our succession planning work identifies key priorities, leadership capabilities for success, and development pathways.

Organizational Change and Culture

We partner with you to define the changes you need to make, to align your executive team, to engage your people, and to drive successful change outcomes.
What our clients
say about us

MindsOpen takes the time to understand the root issues. The coaches have a way of connecting with different types of leaders to get the most out of them in a group and in individual interactions. They approach their work in an authentic way that draws even the strongest naysayers in. During a complex engagement with a team in the business I support, our MindsOpen coach had a way of eliciting the participation of a couple of people I was not sure would open up to the process. They knew how to push people just so. The assessment tools they utilize offer a round understanding of the individual and help to push forward interesting dialogue and insight about other team members. MindsOpen is a fantastic partner. Our coaches are always available to offer insight/suggestions and they have helped me in my approach significantly. You feel like you are working with the very best when engaging MindsOpen.

D.G., HR Executive, Real Estate Investment

They understand nuance, organizational difference, and don't try label individuals or companies, or define people as a "type" in relation to what or who they are. Their approach is a journey. It does not feel like you are being led to a certain point but are facilitated in finding your way. They are clear on objectives but very agile on how you get there. For the first time, I enjoy my coaching sessions. My coach has a very good style. He is challenging but empathetic; listens and understands well; is highly astute; and brings people out of themselves to create an open and candid, but safe environment for teams to engage. I also just felt a connection, trust, and liked him. He is very human in his approach and creates space for me to be vulnerable and honest.

K.S., Chief Operating Officer, Global Law Firm

Their direct style is appreciated. They see into your soul. Other providers are too fluffy compared to MindsOpen. They deliver feedback in a concise and calm way. They see through all the barriers to get to the essence of a person or team. They make a meaningful difference to individuals and teams that go through the rigor of the customized plan. The best I have seen at cutting through the BS and identifying the core of the issue(s). Hence, people learn and grow quickly.

M.T., CEO, Beverage Industry

Leadership journeys today are incredibly complex, intensely demanding and ever evolving. Neil’s style - rooted in enduring principles and concepts; challenging yet caring; highly personalized - is well suited to this environment. His coaching has transformed the way I think about and practice leadership. It’s benefited me in innumerable ways, professionally and even personally. More importantly, it’s benefited the organization I lead and the next generation of leaders coming through it. That ‘multiplier effect’ is priceless. We would not be the organization we are today without him.

Martin Whittaker, CEO, Just Capital

After working with MindsOpen, our leaders have been much more aware of their blind spots and are more self-aware in general. They have improved in their leadership abilities and have also built their confidence. It's been great that our leaders can choose from a few different professionals to ensure they are comfortable with their coach. We have really appreciated the rigor of the psychological insight being taken into consideration. We also love the balance of the customization for each individual with the consistency we are able to gain across leaders. The MindsOpen coaches keep in mind the different needs, skills, and abilities of each of our leaders. That’s been really wonderful for us.

M.K. Head of HR, non-profit sector

MindsOpen is a great way to summarize my coaching experience. My coach’s ability to combine psychological rigor with significant global experience across a broad range of industries has unlocked my leadership potential and significantly accelerated my personal development. Senior executives and mentors recognized this evolution and promoted me from a high potential “diamond in the rough” to a successful leader leading a multi-billion spend, global transformation program. My leadership brand became visible to others through a clearly defined set of characteristics that guide my behaviors every day, resulting in me successfully engaging the wider organization to act and create value for the business. My coach helped me identify and shape these characteristics in line with my past, present, and future, which makes it very natural for me to include them in the way I lead.

J.V., Global procurement executive, Food Industry

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